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Lets discuss Ryze

I do understand that 200 mana is pretty nice early game. And runes OUGHT to be focused on early game advantage because they become minor later on.

But you give up too much in my opinion. Ill agree that armor isn't really that useful early game and you get a ton eventually. So I can see giving up Yellows.
Blues though are hard to do. +100 mana for 6% CDR? Depending on masteries that can work, but not if you go 0-21-9 which I prefer.
+100 mana in quints is ok, but compared to 4.5% movespeed? Meh. MS is one of the few quints that is useful and significant all game long. Especially with all the dodging you have to do nowdays...

I am saying that mana runes are bad in that no other champ would EVER consider taking them. EVER. They aren't efficient by other rune's standards when they ought to be more efficient to encourage people to consider taking it.
I mean, the utility mastery gives 72 mana @18 = 144gold worth for 1 point. A normal mastery point is worth about 40g maybe. Even halving the value for the @18 part, it is still wayyy better than average. Plus its a prereq.
If mana runes were like that, theyd be worth taking.

CDR is too easy to itemize for. I stack mpen reds, mana per level yellows, blues, and flat mana quints.
I also run 21-9 for the movespeed, As Ryze's harass early game doesn't need that CDR until mid game, where there's huge initiations.

Generally, Frozen heart, Blue elixir and Blue buff is more than enough to max out cdr. Hell, you don't even need blue buff.

I usually get.. RoA, Banshees, Frozen Heart, Wota, Manamune/Archangels, mercs. May trade out wota for situationals.

As for movespeed, 2% from the utility and 3% from defensive trees are usually enough for me.

Basically, if you're caught you're caught, and if not, it would still take the opposing champ 4-5 seconds of running straight to get in range, assuming you're both running straight in the same direction and you're about 100 range away from his spell cast area.

I just don't see the appeal of mana/lvl runes. A full set of mana/lvl yellows give 189.54.

Now, with my build, assuming I don't get a chance to upgrade tear (most games never last that long), my Q ends up doing around 500 damage, same with my W.

189.54 mana adds 15 damage to Q, and 9.5 to W.
Thats 3% more damage to my Q, and about 2% more damage to W.

So sure, its noticable when you are unloading a volley. Its going to add up to 100, maybe more, extra damage. (The maybe more is for your AoE with the ult)

Add in mana/lvl blues too, and you get about the same (slightly better). Note this is pre resists.

I prefer being a bit tankier personally.. with the tanky items you build, health/lvl yellows gives a significant boost to effective health. I usually end up with something like 156 MR, 186 armor.
175 extra health at 18 turns into 448 effective magical health, and 500 effective physical health.
Enough to survive an extra attack, or multiple attacks from weaker champs.

And it works for you earlier in the game too (to a lesser extent of course), helping keep you alive longer to farm. Same goes for getting flat MR blues--you are often up against an AP champ in mid. Getting flat MR blues will give you a good boost to your effective magical health, making it a lot easier to sustain.

Your late game is already strong--adding a bit more to it with scaling mana runes isn't efficient, in my opinion.

CDR is too easy to itemize for.
Generally, Frozen heart, Blue elixir and Blue buff is more than enough to max out cdr. Hell, you don't even need blue buff.

The idea was to use the CDR blues to round out your CDR more precisely. Ryze will never take blue as that is a total waste. This is a given.

With 10% Ryze Q, 15% shroud, that puts you at 25%.

Defensive mastery or 9-0-21 will put you at 8.1@18. (or 10% if you are 9-0-21)

So you are at 33.1%. A frozen heart puts you at 38.1% at 18. Taking CDR blues puts you at 39.1% at 18 without the frozen heart and 40% at level 10 with.

If you almost always upgrade to FH, then yeah you don't need the blue CDRs. If you like having the option to take other stuff first but still want maxed CDR, the blue CDRs come in handy.

But I can totally see them as replacable. It just depends highly on your mastery setup. If I had the extra runeslot, I'd probably dump them and take mostly magic resistance blues with maybe 1.5% of CDR just to max me out at 40.

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I would recommend AGAINST the Rod of ages. While the mana and health boost is appreciated over Catalyst, it really slows down aquisition of armor and magic resistance.

With just catalyst, you can get to Shroud, Banshee within 2800g and have your magic-shield, solid health, mana boost, strong armor and magic resistance, and your CDR pretty high.

Rod adds an extra 1800g delay to those goals. You get a bit more health, mana out of it (and 2/3rds valued AP), but your lack of armor/MR puts your survivability as less, plus the delay to CDR hurts.

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I agree against mana per level runes. I was only using the mana/lvl mastery as a comparison point. If you go mana, definitely you want Flat mana to help your early game, even though I don't consider it THAT much of a boost. Its still better than CDR Ill agree.

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Regarding the Combo discussion before: I guess Q,E,W,Q is probably better. But by the time the E hits and debuffs, the Ws already gone off. So its easier for me to Q,W,E,Q.
At 20% CDR, doing a Q, whatever, Q will have about a 1.5 second delay. (remember its 2.5 sec at 0%CDR, and 1.1 sec at 40% CDR)
Even if I root them, my root will still be low ranked and I want to use that time to get away most of the time. Hence, the 0.5 second Q,W,E,Q combo, instead of a sustained ubercombo which will just be too slow to get off until more CDR is gotten.

I just don't understand the mentality that blue buff is a waste on Ryze in ALL circumstances.

Here are the situations where I do not think it is a waste:

- regardless of your runes & masteries, if you build tear -> boots -> catalyst -> shroud
If your jungler is able to give up the 2nd or 3rd blue buff to you, and you haven't gotten your shroud yet, it helps immensely

- During laning phase, even after you have shroud, regardless of your masteries (so whether you go with what I'm doing right now, and are sitting at 30% CDR, or are going with a build that caps you as soon as you have a shroud), the mana regen is supreme. It lets you farm like crazy, getting massive CS, as well as charging your tear quickly. While waiting for the next wave, you can bounce to the wraiths if your jungler won't be able to get to them before they will respawn.

- Later in the game, I still like to grab it if no one else is nearby to do so (if there is a chance enemies may do so). Even with 4k mana, you run out rather fast if you clear a couple minion waves, and get into a prolonged fight. Or a couple different fights. If you build WoTA, your health stays nicely topped, but your mana runs dry.

Now, if another champ needs it for the CDR or if they have real mana issues, sure, give it to them later in the game. But then I at least end up having to recall back to base to refill mana, even though my health is fine. I hate having to walk back across the map :-/